This is the final part of these memories that were jogged by the little holiday-themed strip mall in Carpinteria, California. Before you read this part, make sure you've read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3…
So in the seventies, when I took trips — alone or with friends — up to the Santa Barbara area, I'd always visit Dan Spiegle and I'd sometime visit Carl Barks. I'd also sometimes visit the man this fourth part is about, Russell Myers. Russell has been drawing the comic strip Broom-Hilda since April 19, 1970. That's, as of today, 54 years, eight months and six days. We met via mail (the paper kind, not the e-kind) as pen pals when he was still living in Kansas City. That was where he'd drawn Hallmark greeting cards for a living before the little green witch took him away from all that.
Here's a recycle of a story I told once before here in my obit for a great comedy writer named Phil Hahn…
In 1983, Phil and I were on staff working on a show for Dick Clark Productions. One day, my friend Russell Myers — who was then drawing the newspaper strip Broom-Hilda and still is — was in town so he came by the office to visit and to go out to lunch. We were heading out and we passed Phil's office where Phil was sitting, working.
Russell walked a few steps by Phil's door, then stopped and said, "I recognize that man!" He walked back into Phil's office and said, "Excuse me, sir, but I have the feeling I know you." Phil looked at Russell and said, "I think I know you, too." It took about two minutes before they figured out that they'd both been on staff at the same time at Hallmark back in Kansas City, MO. Phil wrote gags for cards. Russell did the artwork for many of them. But they'd never met or been introduced there; just seen each other in the halls. They didn't actually meet until years later in Dick Clark's building in Burbank.
Sometimes when I went to visit Russell, it was so we could work on a new comic strip he'd created. There was a period there where it seemed like every artist who had a syndicated newspaper strip wasn't satisfied with one. Johnny Hart had B.C. and The Wizard of Id. Hank Ketcham had Dennis the Menace and Half-Hitch. Mort Walker had Beetle Bailey and about nine hundred others. So Russell created a second strip, got someone else to help draw it and picked me to write it.
I remember sitting with Russell in Santa's Kitchen on Santa Claus Lane and working on gags. Then I remember we did six weeks of it and he sent it off to his syndicate and they said they loved it, it was terrific, it was a sure winner and they just had to figure out when to launch it. And finally, I remember a few weeks later, they decided they didn't love it, it wasn't terrific, no one would like it and forget the whole thing.
Oh — and I remember when they changed their minds, he breathed a little sigh of relief. At some point in the process, he'd come to his senses and decided that one strip was enough for him and he was just going to stick with Broom-Hilda for as long as it lasted. That was fifty-two years ago…not a bad decision on his part. And no, I was not disappointed. You can't let yourself be disappointed by promising ventures that don't venture as far as your imagination promised. You'll be disappointed too much of your life.
I did though kinda regret not working more with Russell because he was and still is a very smart man and damned good cartoonist. And then not long after that — for reasons which I'm sure had nothing to do with our strip going nowhere — he went to Oregon. He moved up there and a few years later, Carl Barks moved up there. I think they were like a block apart but I wasn't about to drive to Oregon to see either of them.
Russell and I have kept in touch though. Once, as in the story above, he came to L.A. A few times, we got him down to a Comic-Con in San Diego. Once, we hung out at one of Phil Seuling's famous comic book conventions in New York in, I'm guessing, 1976. This is a photo I took of him then. An art dealer was selling two Krazy Kat Sunday page originals by George Herriman for prices that today wouldn't buy you one of the new Bacon Cajun Ranch McCrispy sandwiches at McDonald's. Russell grabbed one and I grabbed the other. Here he is with his…
I don't have a photo of us together unless you count this. This is from the 1974 San Diego Comic Convention, back when they were at the El Cortez Hotel, an awful place to sleep or eat but a great place to have a comic book convention. Russell is on stage demonstrating how he drew Broom-Hilda. I'm the guy on one knee taking photos of his presentation and I wish I knew where those photos were today. It is, of course, a rotten picture of him but I thought you'd like it because it captures the sense of those early conventions…
And I'm not done yet. Some years later, there was a fad among comic fans and many of my friends. We had these hardbound sketchbooks of blank pages and we'd go to cartoonists and artists and ask them to each draw something on a page. I mailed mine up to Russell in Oregon and when it came back, he had drawn this lovely drawing in it…
Neat, huh? But there was a note of apology in the package via which Russell sent me back the book. He explained that while he had it in his studio, some old guy who claimed to have at one point been a cartoonist dropped by to visit and…well, before Russell could stop him, this old guy grabbed my sketchbook and insisted on drawing something on the page after the one Russell drew on. I opened up the book again and found this…
So that's the punchline to this series of stories that were jogged loose from some corner of my brain by the photo of Santa Claus Lane.
And if you'd like to know what became of Santa Claus Lane…well, the restaurant is now an Italian eatery called Thario's Kitchen. I've never eaten there but the food has gotta be better than when it was Santa's Kitchen. When I ate at Santa's Kitchen, I was always afraid of finding a long white beard hair in my meal. This video will tell you the fate of the rest of Santa Claus Lane and what became of that King Kong Kris Kringle that watched over the place…
P.S.: If you've enjoyed this series of articles, this is the last time I'm posting this particular appeal to help fund my software upgrades. Thanks to all who've helped so far…
